Record company pressure eventually forced the group to adopt the phonetic spelling of their name. "Doot-Doot" reappeared with a new sleeve bearing the group's name. Further singles followed under this name, but none managed to attain the dizzying troughs as the first single. Eventually the album Doot-Doot came along, attracting the same intensive lack of interest as the singles. The group changed their image, moving away from a look that suggested the high-speed collision of a glam-rock band, a convention for PVC fetishists and Dame Barbara Cartland towards a considerably tamer, "modern rustic" appearance. Their sound changed also, with the first two post-_Doot-Doot singles having a subtle "electronic folk" tinge.
Unfortunately this change of direction didn't do them much good, and despite the first of these singles, "The Devil And Darkness", getting some radio airplay, both sank without trace. The album they came from (_Get Us Out Of Here) suffered an even more terrible fate, didn't even get a UK release, and appeared only in Germany and the Netherlands. Understandably disenchanted, Freur dropped out of sight for a couple of years, reappearing in 1988 with the new name of Underworld, minor lineup changes and a slightly more commercial line in synth-rock.
History then promptly repeated itself. The first Underworld single, "Underneath The Radar", attracted some attention in the US (but none whatsoever in the UK), but the accompanying album of the same name, all subsequent singles and the second Underworld album Change The Weather rapidly bit the dust. Once again the group re-invented themselves, this time rather more drastically. The name stayed the same, but the group reduced itself to the core duo of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, recruited DJ Darren Emerson and developed a highly distinctive musical approach that combined a contemporary techno-influenced sound with Hyde's idiosyncratic vocal style and the occasional hint of their past incarnations. This time it worked, and at the moment Underworld are quite definitely hot, with their remixing skills in high demand and a successful album to their name.
All this, however, is completely irrelevant to Doot-Doot. Freur and the current Underworld are best described as upwardly compatible - fans of Doot-Doot-era Freur will be able to hear traces of that sound in recent Underworld releases. However, those whose exposure has been limited to Underworld's latest album dubnobasswithmyheadman may find Doot-Doot difficult to palate. It's early-mid 80s arty synth-pop, from that wave of the genre where conventional instrumentation was no longer frowned upon and the typical sound was less explicitly electronic than it had been a couple of years earlier. Of course, the Freur sound had certain unique elements even then, but it's still a million miles from the group's current sound.
Before the praise, the criticism. Oglio's release, while preserving the original front cover art, regrettably dumps everything else. No lyrics, almost no credits ("All selections written by R. Smith, A. Thomas, K. Hyde"), just a two page advertisement for the label's other releases. Given the classy packaging of the original release, this is a bit of a shame. The track listing disappoints too. Oglio have taken the original LP and added the bonus of two post-_Doot-Doot tracks, for a total of just under 50 minutes of music. Given the capabilities of the CD medium, I can see no reason why they couldn't have used the cassette version of Doot-Doot (which added four bonus tracks) as the basis of this release, and still added those two bonus tracks. The resulting disc would have been 70 minutes long, tops.
Nonetheless, a less than perfect Doot-Doot is still infinitely better than no Doot-Doot at all. After all, the bonus tracks were just that - bonuses. The album gets off to a memorable start with "Doot-Doot" itself. From the subdued intro of insect chirps, to the wonderful haunting chorus and Karl Hyde's stylised vocals, this is a perfect piece of early 80s pop. True, the lyrics don't make a huge amount of sense, but nobody's perfect. "Runaway" is a rather more robust piece of pop, and lacks the ethereal quality of "Doot-Doot", but it's still an excellent song. "Riders In The Night" progresses (albeit slowly) from a quiet, synthy intro into something livelier still. Another classy piece of synth-pop.
"Theme From The Film Of The Same Name" changes the pace yet again. Slow and jazzy, the music is secondary to the lyrics here, in direct contrast to the previous three tracks, where the lyrics have been, well, unspectacular. "Tender Surrender" marks a return to lyrical obscurity and subdued, pleasant synth-pop, ending the A-side of the original album on a largely unremarkable note. Had Oglio used the track listing of the cassette of Doot-Doot, at this point we'd have been treated to the reasonable "Hold Me Mother" and the excellent "You're A Hoover". Oh well.
The B-side of the LP opened with another single, "Matters Of The Heart". This is a reasonably good, slow-paced track, but not in the same league as "Doot-Doot". "My Room" is in similar vein, although slightly more lively, while "Whispering" is quieter and more atmospheric, relying heavily on Karl Hyde's distinctive vocals. "Steam Machine" is...well, "Steam Machine" is best described as quirky. The lyrics are decidedly odd and possibly risque while Hyde's vocals are even more stylised than usual, and the melody somewhat jerky. It's one of my favorites, although it might not be to everybody's taste. The final track of the original LP, "All Too Much", is another strong song. The lyrics are unusual and somewhat childlike, the chorus wonderfully powerful.
At this point the original LP finished, while the cassette added two "Dun Difrunt" extended mixes of "Doot-Doot" and "Matters Of The Heart". It'd have been nice to have these included too. Instead, Oglio have added two tracks that postdate the rest of the material on the album. Fortunately, they've chosen well. "Hey Ho Away We Go" was originally the B-side of the "Look In The Back For Answers" single and is essentially a synth-driven eighties folk song with amusing, clever lyrics and a jaunty melody. "The Devil And Darkness" was the A-side of the preceding single, and is included here in the form of the extended Kevin Whyte remix. It's another song with a folky and rustic yet synthesized feel, and fans of Men Without Hats whose ears pricked up at the use of the phrase "eighties folk" a few lines back might find that the song has certain resonances with that group's "Safety Dance". It's a wonderful track, and is certainly my favourite Freur track and one of my favourite songs of any type. A fantastic song, and I'd have bought the CD for this even if the rest of the album had been awful. It's even followed by one of those brief, jingly snippets that the group were prone to punctuating their releases with.
Of course, the rest of the album *isn't* awful. It's certainly not consistently excellent, and includes a certain amount of material that's (charitably) somewhat samey or (uncharitably) could be construed as filler. However, at least five of the tracks on the original album are excellent, none of them are actually skip-button material, and the two bonus tracks are great. "The Devil And Darkness" is, of course, sublime, although it's fortunate that while the 12" remix doesn't add anything noticeable to the track, neither does it remove anything from the original 7".
In conclusion, I'll give the album a +2 (on a scale of -5 to +5). Some of the songs certainly merit a higher rating than this, but this is counteracted by the weaker material and a recognition on my part that not everybody gets a shiver down their spine and/or sits entranced when they hear "The Devil And Darkness". Definitely recommended to serious synth-pop fans though, and those who liked the first incarnation of Underworld. Those who're familiar with the group's most recent material might want to give it a listen too, if only to put the likes dubnobasswithmyheadman in a historical context.
